


you were inhabited

by wekeepeachotherhuman



Category: It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia
Genre: Alcohol Abuse, Borderline Personality Disorder, Catholic Guilt, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Suicidal Ideation, Toxic Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-20
Updated: 2019-04-20
Packaged: 2020-01-22 19:29:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18534004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wekeepeachotherhuman/pseuds/wekeepeachotherhuman
Summary: After they all almost die on that Christian Cruise, Dennis wonders what it all means.





	you were inhabited

**Author's Note:**

> So, the beginning in probably the darkest. Suicidal ideation to the max. Please heed all tags/warnings and read accordingly. 
> 
> You can skip through to Dennis arriving at Dee’s apartment, if the beginning feels too much.

Dennis is drunk. Of course he’s drunk. That’s something he can always understand to be true. What he can’t understand is why he’s _here_. He pauses; takes in his surroundings: the empty road behind him, the Schuylkill River beneath him, the steel railings of Strawberry Mansion Bridge the only thing between him and a thirty-foot freefall. 

He doesn’t know why he knows that. _Thirty feet_. Maybe Mac told him when they were last here filming that stupid goddamn Project Badass video with Country Mac. Or, maybe Dennis just unconsciously gauges the heights of anything he can picture himself… 

“Holy shit,” Dennis mumbles to himself, running a shaky hand through his hair. 

He has to shut down his brain. Has to try, anyway. 

He steps away from the steel railing, out into traffic, if there was any traffic. The early morning breeze is cool and crisp. It smells fresh, the way it does when the sun hasn’t come up yet. It reminds him that he’s currently existing in a lost time frame. A time frame where none of this matters because no one is around to see it. That three-to-four-in-the-morning window where all the nasty parts of him breathe without shame. 

In this window, right here, right now, maybe Dennis wants to die. But he won’t. He’ll make it back to Dee’s, he’ll fall asleep on whatever sliver he can find in that California King, and when he wakes up, he might not care that he’s still alive, but he won’t have the gall to do anything about it. 

And maybe that’s what pisses him off the most about how it all went down on that fucking Christian Cruise Mac dragged them to. He was gonna die and he wasn’t even going to have to get his own hands dirty. It would just happen and it would be okay that he didn’t care, because what good does caring do, when you can’t actually _do anything about it_?

He was supposed to die. With Dee, and Mac, and Charlie; he was supposed to die. 

And that would have been okay. Because every other alternative ended with him dying alone. He wouldn’t have Mac or Dee to hold his hand. He would just… _be gone_. The two of them would wake up, and they might not even notice for a few hours. Hell, days even if their ADHD got them distracted. 

On that Christian Cruise he was dying _seen_ and _loved_. When would he ever get that chance again?

He takes a deep breath in. It catches in his throat. Then he comes around to the way his cheeks are hot and flushed, tracked with tears. He’s been so quiet. He often forgets that his own thoughts can actually make his body feel things. When had his head and his body become so disconnected? Had they ever really worked together?

Dennis is drunk. That’s something he can always understand to be true. But he suddenly understands something else: he wants to go home. Whatever that means, Dennis wants to go home. 

The walk back to Dee’s is long and lonely. He wishes the sun would just come up around him, but it doesn’t. 

He keys into Dee’s apartment, his fine motor skills a little hazy. 

All of the lights are off, except for the weak light spilling across the carpet from a cheap laptop screen. He hears sex. Two men. And he’s just drunk enough to wonder if Mac’s finally brought someone home. But then, he steps into the living room, and Mac’s alone. Frantically shutting a laptop, cutting off the video he’d been watching in it’s tracks. 

Dennis freezes. So does Mac. They watch one another. Waiting to see who wants to cover up the truth with a lie first. It’s Mac. It’s always Mac. 

“I couldn’t sleep,” he says. Dennis just keeps watching him. His expression blank. “So I came out here to watch some wrestling.”

Dennis can’t even bring himself to feel angry. Or _annoyed_. So, he just sighs. He turns towards Dee’s bedroom, mutters, “Right,” before he closes the door on whatever other story Mac wants to fabricate. 

Dennis knows what he’d heard. Mac knows Dennis knows. Neither of them breathe a word of it. This is what they do. This is how they survive one another. Anything else inevitably leads to mutually-assured destruction. 

He slips out of his jeans and climbs into bed next to his sister. 

Her eyes are closed, but she isn’t asleep. They’ve faked enough sleep together to avoid interacting with Frank and Barbara for Dennis to know what’s real and what isn’t. 

“He still jerking it?” she asks without opening her eyes. 

“Yes,” Dennis sighs. “The guy’s got no common courtesy.”

“You think?” she says. “He’s been at it for hours now. You’re telling me a forty-year old man doesn’t know how to control volume on a very simple electronic device? It’s ridiculous.”

Dennis rolls onto his side to face her. She must feel his eyes on her, because she finally looks at him. She sighs. “What?” she demands. 

“Nothing,” Dennis says. 

“It’s the fact that it’s gay porn, isn’t it?”

“It’s the gay porn thing!” He enthuses, finally glad to have someone next to him that knows him inside and out. “It just…”

“It’s like, just admit it, you know?” she finishes for him. 

“ _Yes_ ,” Dennis says emphatically. 

“You like what you like, we don’t give a shit,” she continues. 

“Right,” Dennis says, but he must not sound so certain. 

Because then Dee says: “Uh oh.”

“What?”

“Maybe we _do_ give a shit?”

“No,” Dennis says pointedly. “We most certainly _do not_ give a shit,” he continues. 

“Right,” Dee placates. 

Dennis opens his mouth to fight back, but suddenly realizes he doesn’t know what to say. He closes his mouth, sets his jaw, and sighs. 

“You know,” she says. “You don’t always have to not give a shit.”

“Yes, I do, Deandra,” he says, sounding more like Barbara than either of them have ever heard before. Dee goes rigid in the bed next to him. “Don’t be obtuse.”

“Screw you, Dennis,” she says, and she rolls onto her opposite side to face the wall. She even shuffles a few inches away from him and Dennis feels the empty space next to him like a deadweight. “Remind me to never try to help you.”

“I don’t need your help,” he says to the back of her head, suddenly glad that she can’t see the way that lie rests uneasy on his face. She can hear it. She can _probably_ hear it. 

 

—

 

Dennis is alone in bed when he wakes up in the morning. That’s what he notices first. Not the fact that there’s someone stomping around. Or that there’s a vacuum turned on in the kitchen. He digs himself out from under the blankets and blearily peers through the now-bright room. 

It’s Mac. Picking up dirty laundry and tossing it into a basket. Then, he gets distracted by an empty glass on the vanity. He picks that up, muttering something under his breath, then grabs the other glasses around the room. He’s distracted. Not set on any particular task. He does this. He _cleans_. When something’s around to make him feel anxious, and last night… Well, last night is something to feel anxious about. Dennis can get that. 

“Mac?” he says groggily. Mac pauses, looks over his shoulder at Dennis, then continues his work. “What are you doing?”

“This place is a disaster, dude,” Mac says, his eyes back down on his work. “I know you and Dee had servants, or whatever, who would do all this for you.” Dennis rolls his eyes. “But there’s this little thing called _tidiness_ that we should all uphold in our homes--”

“Give me a break, Mac,” Dennis mutters, pulling the blankets back up over his head. 

“Sloth is a sin, Dennis,” Mac pokes back. 

“Yeah?” Dennis gripes through the layers of fabric. 

Dennis hears Mac sigh emphatically before he stomps out of the room. Then, the vacuum gets going. Mac pushes it closer and closer to the entrance to Dee’s bedroom and Dennis feels like his head might explode. 

He glances at Dee’s alarm clock. _10:12 A.M._

The vacuum comes closer and closer, so Dennis digs himself out from under the blankets and props up on his elbow. “Mac!” No answer, so he hits up a little straighter. “Mac, come on, man!” When there’s still no answer, Dennis throws his feet over the side of the bed and stalks into the living room. 

Mac doesn’t even look up, so Dennis goes directly to the source. He grabs at the power cord and yanks it out of the wall. The vacuum immediately sputters dead. Aghast, Mac looks down at the lifeless vacuum, then follows the cord to where Dennis is squeezing it within an inch of it’s life. 

“What the hell, Den?” Mac demands. 

Chest heaving, Dennis throws the cord down on the floor. “It is ten o’clock in the morning,” he seethes. 

“So?”

“So, who _vacuums_ at ten in the goddamn morning, Mac?”

“My Mom used to do this all the time, dude!” Dennis rolls his eyes at the obvious lie. Mac notices, so he presses forward. “She did!” He defends, but Dennis stops listening. 

Instead, he says: “Well, then, it’s no wonder your Dad went away for murder because, right now, I feel like I strangle somebody!”

“My Dad didn’t kill anyone,” Mac says, his voice smaller and quieter. 

Dennis sighs, puts one hand on his hip and pinches the bridge of his nose with the other. He’d committed a fatal sin. He’d ignored the mountain of lies they both put between them to get through each day. 

“Right,” Dennis mumbles. “I forgot. Luther McDonald’s a stand-up guy. He’s being framed, right?”

“Probably,” Mac says, grateful for the lifeline, but it just makes Dennis feel sick. That blanketing sickness that settles over you when you haven’t gotten enough sleep. But this feels like it’s about more than just not enough sleep. 

“Aren’t you tired, Mac?”

Mac narrows his eyes. Wonders if this is a trap. “No,” he says carefully. “I got like five straight hours last night.”

“That’s not…” Dennis cuts him off before he can continue. “You know what, whatever. Let’s just go back. Let’s go back to you thinking your Mom ever looked after you or your place. Or, or, that your Dad has never done anything wrong in his life.” He pauses, then says his next point quickly; like tearing off a band-aid: “That you’re not gay, and that I…” He takes a deep breath, stands up a little straighter. “And that I believe all of that is true.”

When Dennis looks up, Mac is staring daggers at him. His chest is rising and falling unevenly. It’s the only time Dennis thinks he’s ever seen Mac as Luther’s son. “I’m _not_ gay,” Mac says through gritted teeth, because that’s what they’re really talking about here. 

“I know,” Dennis says. 

“I’m _not_.”

“I said ‘I know’, Mac,” Dennis says again. 

“Even if you want me to be,” Mac tacks on. Their eyes flicker up to meet one another and Dennis doesn’t know what passes between them.   
There are two conversations happening over top of one another and Dennis doesn’t know which one he wants to listen to. 

“Why would I want that?” Dennis asks, and it’s as much a challenge as it is a plea. He’ll let it be whatever Mac wants it to be. 

And Mac clearly doesn’t know, so he just steps away from the vacuum and mutters: “I’m going to the bar.” He passes Dennis, heads straight for the door. 

“It’s ten in the morning,” Dennis says after him. 

“I don’t give a shit,” Mac answers, then slams the door shut behind him. 

And Dennis thinks… _He doesn’t give a shit either_. There’s a bottle of wine here somewhere with his name on it. 

 

—

 

Dennis is already starting to nurse a hangover by the time he makes it to Paddy’s that afternoon. He shows up, dragging his feet, with a cup of coffee and a pair of sunglasses. 

Mac has Charlie up on his shoulders as Charlie fusses with a light fixture in the ceiling. Dee’s keeping watch, likely spotting them, but mostly just laughing at the way Mac teeters under Charlie’s weight. 

Dennis pauses. Takes them all in and says: “What the shit?”

Dee turns to look at him, smiling gleefully. “Just makes you want to throw a trench coat over the both of them, doesn’t it?” She says, with zero context. Dennis furrows his brow. “I feel like we could use this for something. Some scheme. You never know when you might need—”

“Dee,” Dennis says, holding his hand up to her. “Why the Christ would we ever need two grown men on top of each other in a trench coat?”

“Just don’t rule it out,” Dee says, unfazed. “That’s all I’m saying.”

“Yeah,” Charlie says from Mac’s shoulders. (Mac’s uncharacteristically quiet.) “I’m with Dee on this one, Dennis. Having a giant man in our back pocket? Could be useful.”

“You’re not a giant man, Charlie,” Dennis immediately pokes back, feeling the irritation start to billow out from somewhere in his middle. “You’re a tiny man, sitting on— Giants _aren’t real_! We would never have use for a giant because the second we _used_ a giant, everyone would know we were up to something. In all our years, have we not made the rules of scheming perfectly clear?”

“Calm down, dude,” Charlie mutters. 

“You can’t bring attention to the fact that you’re scheming, otherwise the whole goddamn thing falls apart.” He stops himself there. He doesn’t even know what he’s actually talking about. There’s a world where this isn’t about the schemes at all. It’s about Mac. It’s about himself. It’s about _everything_. You bring attention to the things that hurt you, the whole charade cracks in half. 

“Okay, dude,” Charlie soothes. “Scheming has rules. I didn’t know you felt so strongly.”

“Yeah, man,” Mac finally says. “ _Noted_.”

“Whatever,” Dennis mumbles, shuffling towards the bar. “I need a beer.”

The door to Paddy’s opens wide. “Heyo!” It’s Frank and Dennis needs that beer, right goddamn now. “We got trouble.” He sits himself down directly next to Dennis at the bar. The rest of the gang huddle up. They’re all too close. Dennis can feel his skin crawling. 

Someone hands Frank a beer. He cracks it as he talks. “I just noticed a security camera up on the building across the street. We got people watching us again.”

“Watching us?” Dee balks. “Why would they be watching us?”

“I don’t know,” Frank says. “But it’s a breach of our sixth amendment right.”

“The right to see who is making criminal accusations against us?” Mac clarifies. The gang looks at him, aghast. How the hell could he possibly know what the sixth amendment is? Offended by the shock thrown his way, Mac says: “It is our _Constitution_ , we should all know—”

Franks swats in his direction, shutting him up pretty quick. “No, not that bullshit. Our right to privately break the laws that don’t hurt anybody.”

“That definitely sounds like something in our Constitution,” Charlie says. 

“What we need,” Frank continues. “Is a very tall man. So tall, he can reach up and tear that camera down himself.”

Dee, ecstatic, glances to Mac and Charlie, who also both seem to be on the same page. 

“I think I know a guy,” she says. 

“Jesus Christ,” Dennis mutters, downing whatever’s left in his bottle. 

 

—

 

Dennis is almost asleep in a back booth by the time the gang comes bustling back inside. He hears crashing and the snapping of plastic. He props himself up to see the four of them bashing that aforementioned security camera on the floor of the bar. 

“We got that sucker, Dennis,” Frank says after the bashing’s stopped. 

“Congratulations,” Dennis says back. “You thwarted an object that isn’t even sentient.”

“I feel so alive!” Frank continues, ignoring him. “I don’t think I’m done bashing things.”

“I could definitely bash a few more things,” Charlie agrees. 

Dennis closes his eyes against the way all their voices shout over one another. He can’t listen to this shit anymore. Then, the door closes, and the bar’s quiet. Dennis sits up and the only one left is Mac. 

“You’re not going with them?” Dennis asks. 

“I’m not really _into_ bashing right now?” Mac replies. 

“Right,” Dennis mutters, pulling himself up to his feet. He approaches the bar, settles behind it, then grabs himself a beer. He grabs one for Mac too, who sits down on the stool opposite him. 

“Thanks,” Mac mutters. 

“Sure.”

Mac takes a long drink and then picks at the label on the bottle. He glances up at Dennis, for just a second, before his eyes return to the deep mahogany bar. 

“I’m sorry I woke you up this morning,” he says. 

Dennis shrugs. It’s never been about getting woken up. They both know that. “It’s okay.”

Dennis keeps his eyes downward. He swallows hard, then he feels Mac’s hand on top of his and his breath catches in his throat. He looks down at their hands. Gentle, and slotted together the way Dennis never appreciates with anybody else. He looks up at Mac, who’s still watching him closely. There’s that electricity that passes through them again, and this time, Dennis knows exactly what it is. 

Mac lifts himself off the stool, leans forward over the bar. Dennis does the same to meet him in the middle. Mac kisses him the way he always does: sure and unrelenting. Dennis feels Mac’s hand in his hair, and his hands immediately itch to touch Mac right back. He reaches out, sets his palm against Mac’s cheek. His hand starts to trail downward, his thumb tracing along Mac’s jawline, down his throat. Mac doesn’t pull away. He trusts Dennis’ touch. He always does. For better or for worse. 

Mac pulls away, not far enough that their noses don’t knock together. Dennis can’t feel his breath against his lips. “I don’t say much,” Mac says against his skin. “But you know.”

Dennis nods, lets his hand fall down to Mac’s chest. “I do.”

And maybe that’s enough. Maybe just _knowing_ is enough.


End file.
